Ian Partington shows you how to make money out of the Millennium Bug. The Millennium Bug is rising in popularity as one of the biggest bandwagons of the twentieth century. When I started specialising in Millennium Compliance two years ago, there was only one other product available for tackling the Millennium Bug in Pcs. Now there are hundreds. And why not? There is a clear problem which needs solving, and entrepreneurs have no alternative but to recognise such opportunities for delivering solutions. But with so many solutions to choose from where do you turn for help? There are clearly two approaches, business and technical. Hopefully these are not mutually exclusive. THE BUSINESS APPROACH The market is split into two clear sections, homer-user and corporate. If you look around the PC supermarket shelves, there are about four products vying for prominence. The margins are very low. Many of those products, by going through major distribution channels, have lost a lot of their rights to negotiate reseller agreements with smaller, more dynamic entrepreneurs. The home-user channel has not started selling yet. There is a buying cycle, but no one know when it will start or end. It is likely though, that when it does start the floodgates will open. The major player will be the one with the most prominence at that time. LUCRATIVE My guess is that any new software companies coming into this business arena have now left it too late. If you want to make money out of Y2K, I would recommend that you only look at existing players, companies like mine have been in this arena for a long time. We are very well known. Our reputation counts. The corporate channel has amazed me. At the tale end of last year the largest deal for Y2K software was delivered to the US Treasury a total of 150,000 units. To read the press, most major corporates are "well on target", but that has not been my experience. I predict that the major corporates buying time will be this first quarter of 1999, although SMEs will probably buy steadily throughout the year. THE TECHNICAL APPROACH I can argue for hours with any expert in the world about the effect of the Millennium Bug in PC hardware and software. I will not assume that I am the only one in the world who is right, the technical issues now run very deep. So how do you decide who is telling the truth? It is important that you do not disregard the technical issues for two main reasons. Firstly, you will not sell to a corporate or SME purchaser unless you can demonstrate that you understand some of the principles. Secondly, if you only sell a product because it has a prettier box than the others, then you are lining yourself up for litigation in the year 2000 because you recommend a poor product. ADVICE My general advice would be to talk to the manufacturer of the software you wish to represent and ask more fundamental "buzz word" type questions. Things like "Direct Real Time Clock Interrogation", things like "Latency" things like BIOS Inference. Different companies may have differing opinions on the importance of these issues, but if the person you speak to doesn't know the issues you will fall flat on your face when you need technical support from them. GENERAL SEMINARS Please don't think about starting another round of Y2K seminars. I am totally bored with "experts" telling me it exists in lifts, embedded systems, software and hardware. You see, if my lift doesn't work, I'll use the stairs. My sincere advice is simple. People are already bored of general advice. People want solutions. I find it very boring to be told things I already knew as an "awareness raising" exercise. (The type of thing Action 2000 is dedicated to.) People want solutions, not the ability to make a bigger list of their problems. HOW TO BE A MILLENNIUM-AIRE There are no silver bullets. If a product claims to be one it will not be purchased in great quantities because people are not fools, especially at SME/corporate levels. Represent an established product I would suggest you concentrate on corporate sales, where the levels of understanding are greater and the returns are larger. And be careful, if you can limit your liability in the year 2000 you'll have more time to spend your hard earned rewards. Ian Partington is managing director of Computer Experts (UK) Ltd. An honours graduate in computer science, he turned his attention to the millennium compliance problem in PCs in 1996 and is internationally recognised as an expert in this field. Computer Experts (UK) Ltd. Tel: 44 (0)1273 696975 BACK TO NEWS